Centertown, K.Y. – U.S. Rep. Ed Whitfield, (KY-01), Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Energy and Power, joined with several coal miners at the Equality Boot Surface Coal Mine this week to talk about President Obama’s efforts to eliminate coal production in America.

“If the President and his Administration were truly committed to making America a magnet for jobs, they would not be determined to hike electricity costs in the name of reducing carbon emissions, especially when man-made carbon only accounts for 3.8 percent of all global carbon emissions,” Whitfield said. “This will adversely affect everyday families and job creators alike, such as those working in the coal mines.”

Whitfield went on to say, “These are decisions that should be made in public with debate in the Unites States Congress, not by a President and faceless bureaucracy who are determined to make affordable energy a thing of the past. I want to assure Kentuckians that I will continue to do everything I can to stop the President from hiking energy costs and circumventing the very core of our democracy in the process.”

Background

President Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced new source greenhouse gas emissions standards last year that, once enacted, will make it impossible to build a new coal-fired power plant in America because the technology does not yet exist to meet EPA’s regulations. Once EPA enforces these rules on new power plants, the President will then target existing coal-fired power plants.

Coal-fired power plants are critical to affordable energy in America. Our country gets 42 percent of its electricity from coal-fired power plants and over 90 percent in Kentucky comes from coal. According to the Department of Energy/ National Energy Technology Laboratory, using today’s commercially available technology to comply with these regulations would hike electricity costs by 80 percent for a new pulverized coal plant, and 35 percent to electricity costs for a new advanced gasification-based plant.

To implement the President’s climate change agenda, he will bypass Congress – an elected body representing countless communities across our country – through the use of executive orders.